Pauls Epistle to Colossians (16)

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The Christian Life in Christ

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Let's turn to Colossians 3, please.
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Today is what, the 17th Lord's Day in which we're in this epistle. We've been moving rather slowly, but today we'll be taking a few leaps bounding forward, hopefully get to the first 11 verses of Colossians 3.
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We'll see how it goes. In Colossians 2, we read of the believers' union with Jesus Christ that brought them into a vital living relationship with God through Him, through Jesus Christ.
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For the Lord Jesus is the all -sufficient Savior and Lord of His people. Paul asserted that in Christ the fullness of the
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Godhead dwells bodily and all who are redeemed by Christ experience their fullness in Him.
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The fullness of God was in Him and we are complete or filled in Him. He is the center of everything to us as Christians.
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And so His people are to view their identity and their purpose in life in their union with Him.
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God had accomplished this blessed union for them when He caused each of them, one by one, to be born again.
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They were brought into union with their Savior. Their former lives had come to an end when they were converted to Christ and their new life in Jesus Christ had begun.
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And they confessed this spiritual union in their baptism, showing they were dead now to their former way of life and now living a new life toward Jesus Christ.
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They confessed their former life was over in their baptism and now the new life in Christ lies before them.
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And Paul urged these Christians at Colossae that they were not to allow anyone or any teaching to take their sight and focus from Jesus Christ.
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And that was a problem Colossae had. That's a problem that we have today. There are those that would take our eyes, if they could, if they would, people as well as the devil himself, take our eyes off the
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Lord Jesus Christ and put it on something else. And anything else is a poor substitute if it takes us off the
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Lord Jesus. We now arrive to Colossians 3 verse 1 and following. Here the
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Apostle instructs his readers to live in a manner consistent with their new life in Christ. So we want to begin with reading the first four verses in which this theme is set forth.
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If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
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Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
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There's really two commands here and an explanation. Seek the things that are above, set your minds on things that are above, and then he explains why we should do that.
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Now Colossians 3 1 through 4 is actually a continuation of what the Apostle had just set forth in Colossians 2.
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For there, after Paul had declared to them that their life was centered in Christ, he began to inform them how they are to live out this life in Christ.
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And so in Colossians 2 20 through 23, the last verses of chapter 2, we read the question, if with Christ you died, and then he drew some conclusions that flowed from that.
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If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you live as though you were still governed by the principles of the fallen world?
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And now in Colossians 3 1, we read the matter positively. If then you have been raised with Christ, and then he draws some conclusions from that.
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And so you see it's a continuous message here. If you died with Christ and you did, well, what flows from that?
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And now he's saying if you are alive in Christ, what flows from that? And that's what we have in verses 1 and following.
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If then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
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And so we see our union with Christ instructs us not only how we are not to live, verses 20 through 23 of chapter 2, but it instructs us in the way that we are to live as Christians, both negatively and positively.
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And we're going to see that going back and forth when we work through this passage before us too. Now as we look at Colossians 3 verse 1 and following, we can see how it fits in the larger context of the epistle.
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And so here is an outline to this point. Chapter 1, salutation or greeting.
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Second major section, the person work of Christ. I didn't put any sub points there, but that began with verse 3 of chapter 1 all the way through chapter 2 verse 7.
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And then Paul addressed false teaching and its antidote. And this continued from verse 8 of chapter 2 up through verse 4, which we just finished reading.
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And then within this section, false teaching and its antidote, he argued in chapter 2 verses 8 through 15,
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Christ is all and he's all you need. Second, therefore guard your freedom. And then you died with Christ therefore, as we just pointed out, verses 20 through 23.
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And now fourthly, you rose with Christ. And so you can see he's got a flow of his argument here that he's setting forth before his
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Christian readers. Now again, let's consider the first four verses of Colossians 3, which constitute one paragraph in our
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English Standard Version, the ESV. And again, here we read instruction to Christians whose relationship with God and with God's world has been radically and forever changed because they're in Christ.
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And so verse 1, notice it's a conditional sentence. It opens with a conditional clause.
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If then you have been raised with Christ. That's a condition, isn't it? And then the conclusion, if you want a technical term for it, the first clause of a conditional sentence is the protesis.
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That's the if part. And then the second portion, the then, what occurs is called the apotesis.
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Protesis and the apotesis. And you have a conditional sentence here. If then you've been raised with Christ, the implication is then seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
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Now a conditional sentence will often begin its first clause beginning with the word if. And a second clause begins with the word then or therefore.
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Now we might read this at first glance and conclude that there is a matter of doubt.
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After all, the question is asked, if you have been raised with Christ. Is there doubt about that?
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But actually in the Greek language which Paul originally penned this letter, there were different ways in which one could express very precisely the certainty of a conditional sentence.
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Depending on the words used in the beginning particle, if in Greek, what word was selected, and the intent of the verb used, various degrees of certainty are conveyed in conditional sentences in the
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New Testament. So here's where a little bit of knowledge of the Greek language is helpful.
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And so sometimes a conditional sentence is worded which implies the statement is contrary to fact. And the implied answer is no or it's not true.
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And so an example of this would be when Martha said to our Lord regarding the death of her brother Lazarus, John 11, 21.
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Then Martha said to Jesus, Lord, and here it is, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
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Now the wording in this conditional clause, if you had been here, implies he was not there.
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And the way the Greek is constructed, it was obvious that that's what she was talking about.
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It's as if she said, Lord, if you had been here, but you were not here, my brother would not have died. But another form of the conditional sentence assumes the statement is true to fact.
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Not contrary to fact, but true to fact. An example of this would be when Satan challenged our
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Lord in his wilderness temptation. Matthew 4, 6 reads, if you are the Son of God, now there's the protosist, a condition, if you are the
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Son of God, throw yourself down. In other words, from the temple, from the pinnacle, so everybody will look at you and know you're the
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Son of God and follow you. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.
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Now the devil here was not challenging our Lord as to whether or not he was truly the
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Son of God. If you are the Son of God, in other words, prove it that you're the Son of God. No, for the manner of the condition is set forth assumes a true condition.
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In other words, it was not as if the devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, prove it.
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But rather he said, if you are the Son of God, and indeed you are, then throw yourself down off the pinnacle.
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And so the devil knew he was the Son of God, and he wasn't asking Jesus to prove it. He was asking, he was basically saying, since you are the
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Son of God, demonstrate it. And the Lord, of course, turned him down. And so it was not a challenging question, a challenge questioning the identity of the
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Son of God. It was a challenge to our Lord to show forth that he was the Son of God by performing a miracle in order to impress his observers as to his identity.
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And so when a conditional sentence is expressed in this form, one could even use the word since rather than the word if.
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And some of the newer translations do that. You'll read in the New King James, if something or something, and you'll read in the
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NIV, since something is so, and they're really rendering that type of conditional sentence as a certainty.
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I think they're wrong to do so, because it is a condition, and you don't want to take away that condition.
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There's no doubt that the reality is there, that it's true. But it's being expressed in the form of a condition, and it ought to reflect that.
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I hear radio preachers doing that all the time, by the way. They'll take a conditional sentence, and this class of condition, and they'll say since instead of if.
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And I know what they're doing, but I think that you really are becoming less precise when you do so.
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Now, the conditional clause of Colossians 3 .1 is an example of this last form. The matter is not in doubt, but rather assumed to be true.
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It's as if Paul wrote, if then you've been raised with Christ, and indeed you have been raised with him, and when they read this epistle, that's how they would have understood it.
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And so it's not a question if or not you have been raised with him, but rather it's an implication.
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Since you've been raised with him, then do this, or think this way, or behave this way.
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You follow what we're saying? And so the matter of our having been raised with Christ is not in doubt, even though it's expressed in the form of a condition, if you've been raised with Christ.
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It is a true fact. And so if this is true, and it is, therefore you ought to do what follows from that, seek the things that are above.
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And so he's writing to Christians. If you've been raised with Christ, and you have been, then seek the things that are above, is what
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Paul is advocating. Now what is meant by the expression seek the things that are above?
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Well, first recognize it's worded in the form of a command. If you have new life in Christ, if you've been raised with him, then you are to seek the things that are above, and you're commanded to do so.
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If you're raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. And so Paul had set forth the spiritual reality, you are raised with Christ, as a
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Christian. He then set forth the spiritual duty that flows from that spiritual reality, you're to live in conformity to your high calling.
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F .F. Bruce, the commentator who's with the Lord now, but he was in the middle of the 20th century, a solid guy, an
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English fellow, he wrote, The Colossians knew that like their fellow
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Christians, they knew faith in the power of God, and they were spiritually dead.
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Every time that they recalled their baptism and its meaning, they ought to be impressed afresh with the reality of their participation in Christ's death and resurrection, and draw the logical and practical conclusions.
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Lord willing, we'll be baptizing in a few weeks, and I hope every baptized believer, when they witness that and see that, that they are affirmed in their own baptism and what that means.
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You no longer live as you once lived, when you were without Christ, but you have a responsibility as a
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Christian. If their death with Christ severed the links that bound them to the old world order, which was trying to impose its dominion on them again, their resurrection with Christ established new links, links with a new and heavenly order, with the spiritual kingdom in which
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Christ their Lord was sovereign, ruling from the place of supremacy to which he had been raised at God's right hand.
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Paul wrote, Seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. This speaks of Jesus Christ as the enthroned king, the
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Lord of heaven and earth. He's king of kings and Lord of lords now. He's at the right hand of the
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Father. And you died your life, you're alive in him, and therefore this is what you ought to do, you ought to seek those things that are above.
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It's talking about, you know, seeking the lordship of Jesus Christ and seeking to submit to him, understand him and obey him and follow his leading and guidance and looking for his strength throughout life.
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Seek the things that are above. He's the one with whom we have to do, and so let us seek to learn what he would have us do.
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Let us seek to be conformed to his will. Seek the things that are above. What God has done for us in Christ is both the incentive and the argument for authentic Christian living.
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It flows out of what God has done for us in Christ. We are citizens of a realm that has opened before us and therefore we should live as citizens of that realm in this fallen world.
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And so the idea being conveyed is that we have become participants in a new world order. The promised age to come foretold in the
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Old Testament has been realized through Jesus Christ. God has raised his people in Christ Jesus.
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They possess the life of the resurrection in themselves. Therefore, they need not await the second coming of Christ in order to experience life in the eternal state.
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They have the power of the resurrection now in their lives. Christians have the ability and therefore they have the responsibility to experience an increasing degree in the life now they are living.
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The life now they are to experience what one day they will experience in fullness when
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God raises us from the dead. And so for Christians, let their union with the exalted
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Christ transform their entire life, mind, heart, and will. What are the implications of being raised with Christ?
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This, that believers have now no life of their own. Their life is the life of Christ, maintained and being by him at God's right hand and shared by him with all his people.
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Their interests must therefore be his interests. Instead of waiting until the last day to receive the resurrection life, those who have been raised with Christ possess it here and now.
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The new creation, the regeneration, has already begun in them. Spiritually, that is to say in Christ, they belong already to the age to come and enjoy his life.
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We should be enjoying what we will receive in its fullness in eternity, but we have it now.
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And we are to live accordingly. This should govern how we think, what we value.
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It should govern our aspirations, our desires, our designs in life. So how do we obey this command, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God?
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The answer begins to flow in verse 2. Set your minds on things that are above and not things on the earth.
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That is pretty simple and straightforward. Our way of life should be characterized by setting our minds upon the will of God for us in Christ, our risen
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Lord and Savior. We are to set our minds to view ourselves and the world through the lens of Jesus Christ, enthroned in heaven.
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He is King. He is Lord. We are not distressed like the world is.
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Now we are concerned for our nation. We are concerned for the world. We are in a nosedive, aren't we?
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It would seem, in many ways, worldwide. Economic things are happening in the world right now that could snowball in no time.
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We could have some real tough times ahead, but we are not distressed. We watch with interest and concern.
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We are concerned about difficulty and hardship that is going to pose to many, but we know that King Jesus is ruling.
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Regardless of who wins in November, it is the Lord Jesus who places that person in.
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It could be a person that will bring blessing to us, or it may be a person that will result in his cursing, depending on what, as a nation, we deserve.
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I ask the question, what do we deserve? I don't even want to answer that. But we are optimistic, aren't we?
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Because Jesus Christ is in heaven. So we don't despair. We are not distressed. We are at peace.
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The Lord's kingdom is advancing. He is going to see to it. Difficulties in the world sometimes bring a great advance to the kingdom in short time, and we would like to see that, certainly.
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We are to ponder those things that we have in Christ. This knowledge that we are in Christ should inform our way of assessing ourselves and the world in which we live.
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And so this view of ourselves, of having our minds fixed on the things that we have in Jesus Christ above, may be contrasted with those who are
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Christian in name only, but who are actually strangers to Jesus Christ. And there are many nominal
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Christians who claim all day long that they believe on Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but their life doesn't demonstrate it.
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They are not obeying this command. They are not seeking the things that are above. But rather they might be as those whom
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Paul wrote about in Philippians 3. He first described his own efforts and designs and desires, and then he spoke about some others.
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Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which
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Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself too apprehended, but one thing
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I do, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
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Are we putting forth that kind of effort? Do we have that kind of concern that is governing our thinking and our lives?
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Then he applied it to themselves. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind, and if in anything you think otherwise,
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God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
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And why did he press this? Because there are others around them that were telling him differently. Brethren, join and follow in my example, and note those who so walk as you have us for a pattern.
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Paul says, follow me in my example and find people that follow the same course I do and follow them.
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And then he reasons why, verse 18. For many walk, that is Christian language, in other words, this is their
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Christian walk. They claim to be Christian. Many walk, of whom I have told you often, now tell you even weeping, they are enemies of the cross of Christ.
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That is, they do not live their lives as though they are crucified with Christ. They are living for the world, they are living for themselves.
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Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly. See, Christ is not their
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God, although they would claim Him all day long to be, but really it is their own fleshly lusts, desires that govern their action and their life.
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Whose glory is in their shame, they rejoice in glory in things they ought to be ashamed of.
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And then notice, who set their mind on earthly things. See, they are not seeking the things that are above,
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Colossians 3, verse 2, but rather they are setting their mind on earthly things.
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And then he reasons why that is so incongruent with the Christian life. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we all so eagerly wait for the
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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body, that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which
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He is able, even to subdue all things to Himself. Now, what
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Paul is doing here is setting forth the way of sanctification for the
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Christian. And the way of sanctification is not laying out a bunch of laws that you follow and obey apart from Christ, but rather it is the law of God under Christ that we are to give attention to.
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But what is being implied in this activity is setting our minds on things above, the result is that the things of this earth, that being our sin, will lose its appeal and power over our lives.
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Now, the legalist just looks at the law, thou shalt not. The spiritual
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Christian looks above at Christ, and in Christ, his desire is for Christ, his love is for Christ, he wants to conform his life to Christ, seek the will of Christ.
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The things of sin and earth fall away. Their attraction and the desire for those things diminish, even while your desire and attraction for Christ becomes more inflamed.
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And so, to the degree that we are successful in seeing life in this way, the sin that characterizes us will weaken in its power over us.
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We sing a hymn, that I remembered in writing about this, that says this very thing.
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O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see. There is a light for a look at the Savior, and life more abundant and free.
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Through death unto life everlasting he passed, and we follow him there. Over us sin no more hath dominion, for more than conquerors we are.
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His word shall not fail you, he promised. Believe him, and all will be well. Then go to a world that is died, and that was sung between each one of those verses.
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Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
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And that's exactly what Paul is saying here in Colossians 3. Some Christians get weighed down heavily because of their sin.
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They're tormented by it. And understand, we ought to be tormented by our sin. And all too often what happens is we become too focused on that sin.
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We become very introspective, and we begin to try and make amends and change.
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We begin to focus on things of the earth. We start really living like we were before we were
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Christians. We are to turn our hearts and minds to the Lord Jesus and set our minds upon him, our hearts upon him, and we'll see that that which ties us to the world and earth will weaken.
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And our ties to heaven will grow stronger. And we'll begin to see ourselves becoming more holy in life, because that's where our desires and aspirations are.
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And so those things that formerly bound us become less attractive to us. And so we experience, we become more like Christ.
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This is the dynamic of spirituality, spiritual life. But again, we tend to be a little legless.
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Pastor, just give me 10 steps. What am I supposed to do? And they don't see their
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Christian life in terms of their union with Christ. This is what Paul is talking about here.
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Verse 3 gives a further explanation of this spiritual reality. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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This is not new information, for Paul has already asserted this reality earlier. But he repeats the truth here to reinforce that this is a foundational spiritual truth that governs how we live as Christians in a fallen world.
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The emphasis here, however, is the assertion that our new life in Christ is secure for us.
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It's hidden in God. Our life in Christ is not always apparent to us, certainly not visible to others about us.
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It's hidden in God. But it is a spiritual reality, and it is secure for us.
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It's hidden in God. And then in verse 4, he directs the
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Christian's attention toward the day when our new life in Christ will be finally and fully experienced and enjoyed by us.
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When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. These aren't just words on a page, but there ought to be some spiritual apprehension.
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And appreciation, valuation of these things is very precious. It's a spiritual reality true to every
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Christian. But the Holy Spirit is the one that takes this truth and makes you vividly aware of the reality and the significance of it.
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Probably for most of us as we're listening to this, they're just words on a page. I came across this little testimony, however, of the
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Holy Spirit applying this truth to a man. This was probably a hundred years ago.
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Bishop Boole. He was a very good, solid Bible expositor. He tells of a friend of his to whom, early in his course, those five words,
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Christ, who is our life, were made a new world. As he walked back to his home over the dark fields from a mission service, he'd been conducting these simple, these familiar words, passed through his soul in one of those moments of insight which
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God alone can explain. Within ten paces as I walked, life was transformed for me.
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He said, so wonderful was the discovery that the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely rescuer, friend, and king, but life itself, life central, inexhaustible, springing up within my soul, rising to eternity.
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And that's what the Holy Spirit does. If he blesses you with the truth, he helps you to see the reality of it and the significance of it so that it's transforming.
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It's not just the deadness of the letter on the page, but it's the reality in which the Spirit informs and applies to our lives.
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And there are many that have never encountered any kind of experience like that. And they're impoverished because of it, in my mind.
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Christ is our life. And we're to see Jesus Christ as the center and meaning of all we are as Christians.
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And the scripture uses this kind of idea or language in a number of places. Our Lord told his disciples, a little while longer the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live, you will live also.
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Here's the union. 2 Corinthians 4, 8 -10 We're hard -pressed on every side, yet not crushed.
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We're perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, not forsaken. Struck down, not destroyed. Always carrying about in the body the dying of the
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Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. I remember a guy teaching or preaching in an allegorical way.
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I wouldn't commend his hermeneutics, but he was talking about the woman who had that alabaster box of precious ointment that she broke and anointed the
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Lord Jesus. And he went on to talk, this is how we need to be as Christians, broken before the
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Lord, so that the fragrance of Christ might fill the room.
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And that others may be able to detect it and see it within us. I'm not so crazy about his method of interpretation, but I'd say amen to his spiritual instruction.
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Galatians 4, 19 reads, My little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.
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He's speaking to professing Christians here. And some of us,
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I think, ought to be deeply concerned for others of us until Christ is formed in us. Where is it?
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Where's the reality? And Paul expressed in Philippians 1, 21, For to me to live is
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Christ and to die is gain. The life that he lived was a life that we have in Jesus Christ.
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That's how we ought to understand these matters. And so that's verses 1 -4.
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Now, believe it or not, at the end of verse 4, it ends the first major division of the epistle to the
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Colossians. Oftentimes our chapter divisions don't necessarily reflect where the division should be placed.
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For up to verse 4 of Colossians 3, Paul has basically been setting forth instruction as primarily doctrinal in content.
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But now, beginning with verse 5 of Colossians 3, the Apostle begins the second division of his epistle, which is primarily very practical in content.
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But the first has to go first, and it leads to the second. Doctrine is always first.
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Practice flows from doctrine. If you don't have right doctrine, you cannot have right practice.
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If you have right doctrine, it better lead to right practice. And so, we've already dealt with the two chapters before us.
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Now we have the two chapters in front of us. Let me bring forward again our outline just to see how this flows.
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Again, we had the opening salutation. Secondly, the personal work of Christ. Thirdly, false teaching and its antidote, through verse 4.
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And now, the fourth division of the epistle, the Christian life in Christ.
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And this begins with verse 5 of chapter 3 and continues through verse 6 of chapter 4. And we can discern some divisions here.
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Put off, verses 5 -11. Put on, verses 12 -17. Be subject to, chapter 3 .18
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-4, verse 1. And lastly, watch and pray. And it's going to take us a couple of weeks to get through here.
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But we want to address the put off in verses 5 -11. I want to read the entire passage so we get a sense of its entirety.
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Rather than just piecemeal. I think this would be helpful. By the way, this is how the epistle would have been read to the church at Colossae.
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Probably in a single setting is a letter. And so the instruction, verse 5.
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Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
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On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. And these, you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away.
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Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self.
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That would be the life before you become a Christian. With its practices. And to put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
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Here, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free.
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But Christ is all and in all. Put on, as God's chosen ones, or as God's elect, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
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Bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the
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Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
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And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the law. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
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Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged.
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Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters. Not by way of eye services, people -pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the
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Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the
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Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done.
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There is no partiality. Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven.
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Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which
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I am in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.
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Let your speech always be gracious, seeded with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
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There is the Christian life in Christ. There are a number of very practical and straightforward commands that address specific sins that need to be forsaken by Christians.
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This is the way unto Christian maturity, conforming your life to the word of God as the
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Lord enables you by his Holy Spirit. Maturity would not result from esoteric communications with astral powers.
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That is what the false teachers were telling those Christians at Colossae. This is the way you can really get spiritual, by worshiping angels, being communicated by them, and having these glowing subjective experiences.
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No, it is not that difficult. This is the way to Christian development and maturity.
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Conforming your life to the law of God in Christ Jesus. The Reformation Study Bible footnote states the matter well.
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The route to maturity is not the path of secret revelations or of self -punishing disciplines.
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It consists in understanding and living on the basis of the believer's death, resurrection, and heavenly enthronement with Christ.
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The Colossians have a false notion of heavenly reality, which ironically leads them to fruitless efforts on the earthly plane.
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Fruitful living on earth begins, rather, with right understanding of heavenly reality. Amen. Stated in just a few words, the truth of the matter, the reality of the matter that Paul is setting forth here.
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You have to know the truth, the doctrine. It will set you free as you live your life in the light of that.
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And so, verses 5 -11 we can just simply describe as putting off. Again, verse 5, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry.
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Paul instructs these Christians to put to death these sins. The King James is perhaps more rhetorical, which reads,
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Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth. I like that. I can memorize that.
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Mortify, therefore, your members on earth. And then it includes fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, which is idolatry.
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And so, to put to death means that we are to remove these sins from us. We are to repent of these and see to it that they are no longer practiced by us.
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As Matthew Henry wrote, The apostle exhorts the Colossians to the mortification of sin.
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John Owen's works, perhaps the best volume in all of them. It's volume 3, isn't it?
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Volume 3, not 6, is it? Volume 3, The Mortification of Sin. And if you want to read about sin and how to deal with it,
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John Owen, The Mortification of Sin, he touches it all. And it's online.
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And so, the apostle exhorts the Colossians to the mortification of sin, the great hindrance to seeking the things which are above.
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Since it's our duty to set our affections upon heavenly things, it's our duty to mortify our members which are upon the earth, and which naturally incline us to the things of the world.
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To mortify them is to subdue the vicious habits of mind which prevailed in your Gentile state.
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Kill them, suppress them, as you do weeds or vermin which spread and destroy all about them, as you kill an enemy who fights against you and wounds you.
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The New King James Version, and the King James, is more faithful to the Greek text. It reads, Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth.
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ESV avoids that language, but it shouldn't. That's in the Greek text. Perhaps ESV translated it in order to avoid a difficulty in the translation.
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How do you make sins your members? I thought your members are your arms, your eyes, your feet, you know. And it's describing these vices as members.
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And I think they're trying to soften that incongruency, as it were, through their translation.
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John Calvin proposed why it was expressed by Paul this way. To mortify your members that are on the earth.
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He makes mention of certain vices which he calls, not with strict accuracy, but at the same time elegantly, members.
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For he conceives of our nature as being, as it were, a mass made up of different vices. They are, therefore, our members, inasmuch as they in a manner stick close to us.
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He calls them also earthly, alluding to what he had said, not the things that are on earth, Colossians 3 .2,
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but in a different sense. I have admonished you that earthly things are to be disregarded. You must, however, make it your aim to mortify those vices which detain you on the earth.
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He intimates, however, that we are earthly, so long as the vices of our flesh are vigorous in us, and that we are made heavenly by the renewing of the
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Spirit. This idea of Christians needing to put to death is somewhat of a paradox, however.
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He's telling you to put to death the members in your body, and then he lists these sins. But I thought we were already dead in Christ.
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Isn't that what he asserted in Colossians 2, that we had died with Christ? And now he's saying to put to death your members.
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It's almost a paradox. For the scriptures had clearly taught us earlier that we had already died in our union with Jesus Christ, but here we are told to put to death these sins.
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The spiritual reality is that we died with Christ. The practical reality is that we still have sins that we have to deal with, and that we must put them to death.
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Paul is calling upon Christians to become in practice what they are in principle, dead to sin and alive to God.
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That's what you are in reality. Now, you need to live that way. There are five sins listed in verse 5.
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The first four are sexual sins. The fifth is the sin of covetousness. Later, in verse 8, he identifies five more sins that concern anger and abusive speech.
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There are ten altogether here. This is a partial list. They are found elsewhere. In fact, there are four or five of these in order that are found elsewhere.
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I should have listed those, but I didn't in Paul's writings. He first identifies four sins that are to be mortified or put to death.
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They are sexual immorality, impurity, passion, and evil desire. The first speaks of evil deeds done, sexual immorality.
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That's outward, physical, sexual sin. But they stem from evil desires that a person has, which are driven by a person given over to passion and impurity.
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Take note that these sins that Paul declared to be put to death by the Christian are not only those sins which are outwardly committed, but they include sinful thoughts as well.
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This is important. New Testament Christianity is transformative from the heart, not just a change of outward behavior.
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Our Lord taught His disciples that this was essential to the nature of true salvation. He said,
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Do not think I came to destroy the law of the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For surely
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I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled.
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The Lord Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, helps His disciples fulfill the law. Not perfectly, but it is their governing code to Christ.
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Whoever therefore breaks these commandments and teaches men so shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.
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Whoever does and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Here it is, For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
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We have to be more righteous than the Pharisees. How can that be? They were very righteous, we think.
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Here our Lord was not talking about the righteousness of justification which God gives as a gift to man and Jesus Christ.
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The imputed righteousness of justification certainly exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, but rather our
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Lord was speaking of practical righteousness here. Unless you are more holy than the
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Pharisees were, you have no hope of salvation, is what He is saying. You will not be saved on the day of judgment.
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The righteousness of the true Christian must be greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees, for theirs was only an outward conformity to the law.
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The righteousness of the true Christian, however, is internal as well as outward conformity. And in Paul's instructions here to put to death the desires, he is addressing not only outward conformity, but he is moving toward inward conformity to the law of God.
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The righteousness of the Lord Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit is able to enable
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His people to experience. You follow what I am saying? Paul is making a command here to these
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Christians that it is not just the outward things that go to the heart of it, and put to death those desires, those sinful desires, because those are what originate the actions in your life.
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After those four sexual sins, he mentions covetousness as the fifth sin, which he equated with idolatry.
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Covetousness is the desire to have more than what God or what Christ has righteously given you.
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It is the failure of being content with what God has not given you. You have got to have more.
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More. You are not happy with what God gave you. You are covetous. Covetousness is the inordinate desire for something different or more than what
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God has provided. A covetous man will be an ungrateful man, for he is not content with the
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Lord's provision. I was reading in the Old Testament of all the murmurings of Israel. They were idolatrous.
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They wanted more. Complaining against the manna. So God gave them quail to the point they got sick, didn't they?
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Many died. He says those Israelites who complained against the provision of the
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Lord and were subsequently judged by the Lord. Then in verse 6, they must be forsaken, because on account of these the wrath of God is coming.
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That is why you better get rid of them, because God's wrath is coming upon all those that are characterized by these things.
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This is the present tense. For on account of these things the wrath of God is coming. Present tense.
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Sometimes it is referred to as a prophetic present tense. The reason the present tense is used is to show the wrath of God is so certain of coming due to people committing their sins as if the wrath had already arrived.
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He is really pressing them on this. If we are Christians, we will deal with these sins, for we know that God's wrath is coming upon all those
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It doesn't matter if you claim to be a Christian. You can claim all day long that you are under the blood of Jesus. So it doesn't matter.
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Your sins that you commit are forgiven. The sins they commit out there are not forgiven because they are not under the blood.
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That is not how it works. God judges everyone just like He does in Romans 2.
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He is trying to unsettle the Jews and the self -righteous people who thought they were holy. Therefore you are inexcusable,
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O man, whoever you are, who judge in whatever. You judge another, you condemn yourself, or you who judge practice the same things.
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You are living in the same way but you think you have a different standard by which God is going to give you a pass.
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And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, you will escape the judgment of God?
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Rhetorical question implying no, you won't. And Paul wrote of these matters to the church at Ephesus, But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you as is fitting for the saints.
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It shouldn't be characteristic of Christians. It should be a forgiving of thanks.
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Why? For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
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In other words, he does not have salvation. Let no one deceive you with empty words.
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Many people are deceived with empty words today. You can still have salvation but you can't have the forgiveness of disobedience.
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Therefore, don't be partakers with them. And Paul is arguing the same thing in Colossians 3.
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Don't you be partakers of them. Put to death those things. Why? Because the wrath of God is coming upon those that are doing those things.
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Don't let that be you. And so these
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Christians need to put to death these sins for they are still troubled by them. And Paul acknowledges this these sins still troubled them, being committed occasionally by them, and they must have put a stop to this behavior.
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They did not become perfect when they became Christians, but they are no longer as they once were. Then in verse 8
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Paul set forth the other sins which they needed to mortify, but now you must put them all away—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
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The Christian should be different than the non -Christian in the manner in which they speak to others. The first three sins listed speak of attitudes of the heart—anger, wrath, malice.
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The last two are sins of speech, which are expressions of the first three sins. If we are characterized by anger, wrath, and malice, wishing ill of people, we need to put these to death.
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They should not be seen or heard coming from a Christian. Indeed they cannot be. A true Christian must put these sins away from him and realize a true
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Christian can be determined by his speech. In fact, it will be a vital aspect of the judgment when each of us stand before the
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Lord Jesus. For not only will our actions be judged according to the standard of God's law, but our speech will be judged also.
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And our Lord warned His disciples about this matter. He said a man's speech will reveal what kind of man he is, whether he is of God or of the devil, whether he is a
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Christian or not, on the day of judgment. Either make the tree good, its fruit good, or else make the tree bad, its fruit bad, for a tree is known by its fruit, brood of vipers.
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He wasn't talking lovingly to his disciples here, was he? Brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things?
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For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. See, the speech will betray whether a person is a
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Christian or not. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things. An evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
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So bringing forth is the speech. But I say to you that every idle word that men may speak, they will give an account of it in the day of judgment.
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Every word. For by your words you will be justified, in other words, vindicated. And by your words you will be condemned on the day of judgment.
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When you stand forward, will your life prove that you are a Christian, or will it prove that you are a hypocrite?
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Here, one of the bases of examination will be your speech, the words you speak, the words you write.
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We need to put to death these things because they will be damned who live in this way and die in this way.
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One important source of evidence for our claim to be a Christian will be examined on the day of judgment by the words we speak.
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James wrote about that in his epistle. We won't read it. Then in verses 9 and 10,
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Paul wrote, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self, but that his practices have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his
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Creator. Again, a person's speech is the issue. Lying is not to be done by the
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Christian. Why? For you had denounced and turned away from that old self, that old way. That's what non -Christians do.
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They go about lying. That's the way you were before your conversion, your new birth, your baptism.
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You had confessed and shown forth your new life that the Lord had created in you. And now you are attempting to become like him, your
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Savior, who had redeemed you from your sin. And then Paul concludes by setting forth the leveling effect of the death of Christ to redeem his people.
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He renders them all as his without distinction. There's no distinction between them any longer.
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They are all who are in Christ. They are all and in all. Verse 11, here there is not
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Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarians get the enslaved free, but Christ is all and in all.
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He is at the heart, the sum of all things, Christ, who is our life. And don't allow yourself or anybody else to divert you from him.
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Everything is in him. The source of life, the meaning of life, the answer to every question in life is in Jesus Christ.
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And may the Lord help us to see that clearly and embrace it fully and go forth from this place living accordingly.
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Amen. Let's pray. Thank you, our Father, for your word and the clarity of these words set before us.
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And we pray, Father, that you'd be merciful to us and grant us grace that we might obey your command to set our hearts on the things above, to seek you, our
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Lord Jesus, who is seated at the right hand of the Father, and that we might be very diligent to put to death these things on the earth.
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We know that this world, this earth, is a fallen thing, a condemned thing that will pass away one day, but they who do your will will abide forever.